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January 04, 2017

La La Land's music director: "I liked Emma Watson enormously"

At one point, Miles Teller and Emma Watson were linked to play the lead roles. Did you meet with them?

I was looking forward to meeting Miles. Emma [Watson], I spent some days in the studio doing preparatory work on her voice. We had “City of Stars” written at that point. We decided to leave it lyrically neutral so she sang “la de da” [to the melody of “City of Stars”]. It was very early in the process.

She came in, we had fun, and I liked her enormously. I’m sure I’ll get to work with her another time.

How did her singing hold up?

We would have got her there, for sure. She went on to do Beauty and the Beast and I’ve heard great reports of what she’s achieved there.

In fact, I did her first two or three demos for Beauty and the Beast in my studio. She was doing this exploratory work for La La Land and said, “There’s this other thing I want to try out for.” I did a couple of Beauty and the Beast songs for her and all of a sudden she was working on that. I had a very early hand in that. I’m looking forward to seeing it.

Well the director of La La Land is sure that he will work with her. I liked that! I would have loved to see her in La La Land, but she opted for Beauty and the Beast, which is a blockbuster. Either way, there is one director who wants to work with her.

I think Emma missed the mark by not opting for La La Land. B%B will be good, but no comparison to the success of La La Land. LA La Land was something new - obviously as Oscar contender- there are are a lot of Fairy Tale films being made. I hope BB is successful , but I still think she missed something.

I am sure she will have another opportunity, however commitents made at Emmas level tend to be early In the project so it is not always a matter of choice. I aways imagine these meeting to be like chess games factoring in all the aspects and choseing the projects. LOL of course it is bunch of business men and lawyers from the moment the actor excepts the script.